


after midnight

by saraheli



Category: Block B
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gang World, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Angst, Heavy Angst, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 05:23:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14784330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saraheli/pseuds/saraheli
Summary: two gangs at war threaten to tear the city apart just to take each other down.lee taeil, the leader of a major gang, brings his rivalry with woo jiho to new heights when he uses the most dangerous weapon to get inside: his ex-lover.





	1. part one: park kyung

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes, he wonders if the world was always like this. He wonders if the earth’s crust was always made of gunpowder. He wonders if food always tasted so much like money and if money was always this heavy. He wonders if power always smelled like sexual deviance and Triple Sec. He wonders if he was born into a world that begs for corruption or if he bruised this city by saying yes. He wonders why none of them ever stop. He wonders why he never stops.

“Fucking Christ it stinks in here,” he let out a cough that echoed against the concrete walls, “Why don’t you ever clean this shit out?” He tapped an empty pizza box with his foot and watched a mouse scuttle out from under it and into the darkness.

“What are you, my mother?” A hand grabbed his side and tugged him into the embrace of the man beside him, “If you want to clean it, be my guest.”

He knew that these words were more of a challenge than an invitation, and he knew what would come if he fulfilled them. It would start with cleaning, innocent enough stuff, but it would end in a heated, wordless conversation between his mouth and that of the room’s other occupant. Jiho always made sure that he was that other occupant.

Kyung had met Jiho when they were children, but the gap in their communication between now and then made it feel like that was lifetimes ago. He sometimes regretted closing the aforementioned gap. It was too late for feelings and for consequences. It was too late for all of this falling that he was feeling all over again.

Neither boy could any longer deny that the other was beautiful. Kyung was Jiho’s weakness, his confident. He had so quickly become his everything again, and this was something that Kyung had counted on. He came back to this world mere months ago, and he was higher up than anyone thought he could get. Kyung was gathering power from anywhere he could clutch it; he was taking responsibilities from everywhere, putting himself in danger and filling Jiho’s pockets with more cash than he had seen since the last rush. But Kyung felt more than whatever simple gratitude Jiho must feel; he felt lust and closeness and something hot and burning that he wasn’t allowed to feel. Something he had to ignore to finish his job.

“So,” Jiho took a seat on the couch which, shockingly enough, was in pristine conditions in spite of its horrendous surroundings, “are you gonna look this shit over with me or just complain?” Kyung hesitated, which he should not have done, which forced more words from Jiho as if the empty seconds were coins in the vending machine of wherever his rancid thoughts came from. “Get over here before I come and get you.”

He patted the seat beside him before leaning forward to pull a metal box out from under the table. This was something he hated to admit that he loved about Jiho: even in all of this mess, he kept his records organized. He never fucked around with money or with women. That was the rule.

That was the rule for all groups like this one. Selling bodies and substances and time was a business that thrived in the gunk beneath even the lowest dips of the sewers or the bottoms of the heaviest dropped hearts in any melancholy chest.

“What are we looking for?” Kyung asked emotionlessly, taking the seat beside Jiho. His eyes glazed over the other man’s hands as they carded carefully through papers. Jiho cleared his throat. 

“Discrepancies,” he bit down on his fat lower lip as he handed Kyung a stack of files, “Who owes me money and who thinks we owe them.”

Kyung scoffed but took the folders regardless and opened the first one in his lap. “What happens if we do owe someone money?”

“We don’t,” Jiho answered with a nonchalance that, if the circumstances had been different, would have made Kyung uneasy, but this was just the sort of confidence that he was supposed to find. The fact that it came so easily in precisely the way he had predicted it would did, however, bring a bout of nausea to him as he tried to ignore the heat on the back of his neck.

Don’t be misled by Kyung’s outwardly submissive demeanor and obedience; as you might imagine, someone like him had to bring something extraordinary to the table in order for people like Jiho to even consider keeping him around. Kyung was smarter than anyone. He could take on a whole building full of men without so much as a cut on the cheek. He was remarkable, and Jiho found that attractive.

It was a life of gunpowder and underbellies of all kinds for which Kyung was usually behind the scenes, but this progression to the front line was a risk he had been implored to take. No one here knew that, though, and none of them needed to. All they needed to know was that Park Kyung was not here to lose.

It was late.

It was dank and dark and the rooms were full of men and smoke and carefully constructed laughter. Jiho’s hands stayed on his cigarettes and the legs of his jeans as the soft sugar skin of ladies swayed before him in the air. He coughed at them and kept his lips tucked alternatively between his teeth.

Kyung watched from the sidelines, ignoring how consistently the other man’s eyes dragged over his figure from across the lounge. He could almost taste that familiar salt and smoke of intoxication that haunted his tongue, almost smell the desperation for a good fuck and a wad of cash. He could picture himself sitting comfortably beside that powerful man, feeling him in all of those ways that he liked and being felt just the same. Kyung wanted to let Jiho take care of him, but he knew that wasn’t why he was here. He couldn’t stop remembering other nights like this one.

_“Baby, just enjoy tonight,” his voice was smooth and soft like his lips that grazed over his jaw. “That’s what it’s for. Tomorrow will be worse.”_

_He tasted like smoke and old love and gin. He tasted like electricity and freedom and live above the asphalt. Kyung wondered what his own mouth tasted like. He deduced that it must be good for how hungrily Jiho licked out its insides._

_“Why do you only do that on nights like this?” Kyung had ventured to ask, looking for something that could stop the hole in his heart from expanding._

_“I can’t very well let the others know that you’re my favorite, can I?”_

It made him sick, and the tossing of his stomach made up his mind for him.

“Why didn’t you call sooner?”

Kyung cupped his hand over the phone speaker and peeked over his shoulder to assure that no one had followed him into the corridor.

“I told you, I didn’t have time. You think it’s easy climbing ranks in here?”

The voice on the other end scoffed, “It’s easier when you let the leader fuck your ass,” he sighed, “You should have sent word once you were in. They could have killed you.”

“Nice to know you care.”

“Kyung, I’m serious.”

“So am I, Taeil.”

Taeil was the one who had dragged him back underground. He was Kyung’s protector and the leader of a gang that rivaled all others in the city. Their influence had been spread far and wide for a time, but they were being pushed to the lower rungs of the ladder and were hard-pressed to regain their status.

That’s where Kyung came in.

“Just remember,” Taeil continued, “It doesn’t matter how well he sucks you off. It doesn’t matter if he tells you all of his secrets or that he loves you.”

_Ouch._

“I know.”

“He doesn’t mean any of it,” Taeil reminded him, “He could know.”

_Ouch._

“He might—”

“I get it,” Kyung swallowed. “I’ll get it done.”

“Just do your job.”


	2. part two: lee taeil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> two gangs at war threaten to tear the city apart just to take each other down.
> 
> lee taeil, the leader of a major gang, brings his rivalry with woo jiho to new heights when he uses the most dangerous weapon to get inside: his ex-lover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being the one on top is supposed to be the easy part that glows as it waits for you to push others from your path, but Taeil knew it wasn’t going to be like that from the beginning, and, now that he was done fighting, he wondered why business as usual was making him want to be on the bottom again. But, how could he control his world from the bottom up?

Opioids are a hard business. Junkies and prostitutes and stupid youths were woven through the seedy underbelly of this city, and San Syndicate was the largest organized crime group of its time as they delved easily into the soft brown bruises of all of these demographics. This, however, did not make opioids any easier to sell. The selling, in fact, was the easiest part. All of the steps leading there? Not so much. With arms dealers, messengers, carriers, and the like under the surface and doctors and civilians and denial-ridden addicts above, Taeil had made bank on doing the jobs that no one wanted to do. He was always the one to test the product, take a beating, or dispose of whatever waste was left behind, and he did all of it without so much as a private whimper.

He kept his mouth shut with the knowledge that he would make it up to himself with all of the rewards that came with power. Now, he got to let things go on before him without even lifting a finger, and yet, it was never difficult to find a reminder that opioids are a hard business.

Things like this were never as relaxing as they needed to be. They never made his stomach settle like did the thought of them, never made him melt beneath himself like a beautiful woman. Maybe it was the watching. Watching wasn’t the same as doing, was it? Certainly, it wasn’t. Seeing didn’t feel warm under your fingerprints. Eyes can’t feel that pulse of skin or the sweat of cathartic release that strains against it. There was nothing encapsulating about merely seeing, but that was what the guy on top got to do, huh?

No more dirty work.

Taeil had never liked doing it anyway. Or, that was what he told himself. No more taking them for himself, he said. No more dirt beneath his fingernails or smears on his clothes. No more writhing in his palms, breathy groaning and hushing and begging and bursting—no more of that. Never again would he watch brightness swim to the depths of pupils

“Jesus,” Taeil shifted in his seat, “Can you just—can I just do it?”

“You told me to say no if you asked me that,” the younger responded, standing from where he had kneeled beside someone else. “Besides, I’m done.”

Taeil cleared his throat and watched as hot crimson dripped from the blade in Jaehyo’s trembling fist. The boy never liked it. Taeil wasn’t sure why he picked him. This, the silence, was much better than what had come the first time. Crying and pissing and vomiting are customary; self-loathing and stoicism are more so. Jaehyo’s still-shaking hands made him the exception that still carried with him some scrap of whatever cloth tied him to the rest of people.

“Right,” Taeil cleared his throat uncomfortably and shifted again so that the metal backing of his seat carved painfully into his shoulders, “Thank you. You can go, Jaehyo.”

And he did. He had to pay special observation to the weight of his shoes so that he wouldn’t run, but that effort hardly gave any payout.

Now, as he stood from where he had been sitting to follow the trail of new blood to the dried pool it always joined by the window, Taeil watched the city move beneath him. He had done a lot of work to stand on this spot, and, though he had no intention of giving it up, part of him missed the bottom. He missed the dirty work.

That was why he had started this mess, and that is unquestionably what it was: a mess.

Taeil had made it to the top, so the next thing to do was to bring San Syndicate to the top, too. Rise higher. That, however, took a little more than single killings and beautiful women to complete. It took a genius and the unprecedented destruction of anyone rivaling them in their market to overturn the city and make it theirs. Make it full of the same drugs from the same people who washed their money with Tide and time.

That’s how Park Kyung ended up at Zico’s side again.

* * *

_  
“There is no way in hell I am going back there.”_

_Kyung would never admit it, but it wasn’t for any reason other than that it had hurt enough the first time he had worked with Jiho. He had swallowed harder back then than he ever needed to now, and he had no intention of going back no matter how divine the reward._

_“Kyung,” Taeil had folded his hands in front of him with his elbows rested on his knees in a position of supreme authority. “I’m sorry, but you don’t get to say no to me right now.” He cleared his throat, “I get that this is going to fucking suck for you, but I need you to see the bigger picture here—this isn’t about you.”_

_How could it be about Kyung? It was so clearly about Taeil that it made his skin hurt; his eyes ached for wanting to roll._

_“Right. It’s about Double S, huh? Doesn’t matter what I think.” Kyung scoffed, “But whatever, not like you give a shit. How much you paying me?”  
_

* * *

And now they were a year in with nothing to show for it—not nothing, but things that only whoever lived behind the scenes could ever appreciate, and that was not enough for Taeil.

“Boss?”

“Hmm,” Taeil turned to see a tall hooded figure.

He lazily stood with his weight pressed into his hip, a long duffle bag at his feet.

“I thought you might want to check in on these considering you’ll be using them tonight,” his voice was accompanied by a low chuckle.

“Right, of course, sorry,” he shook his head and came over to where the bag laid open on the concrete floor.

Jihoon had been Taeil’s arms dealer since Double S had fallen into his hands, and he was never disappointed. He knew what he was doing. In spite of his childish demeanor and baby face, there was no holding Pyo Jihoon back from his intentions.

“They good?”

“Uh-huh. These should work just fine.”

“Just a sniping job, huh? Should be fast, right? We should grab a drink after if you’re not too preoccupied.”

So, they grabbed a beer. It had been quick, but Taeil kind of wished that it hadn’t been. It was his first night out on the streets in months—his first rookie job since he had been a real rookie. This bar was like being a rookie, too: loud music and cigars and full of the high life that anyone who didn’t live on the streets would expect from living large, as it were.

“I haven’t seen you in here in…what? Months? Years, maybe?” Jihoon slurped the foam from the top of his beer and met his friend’s eyes, “I guess the big man doesn’t have time for little old me anymore.”

Taeil chuckled and tapped his fingernails against the outside of his glass, “I’m working something big right now, Pyo, you know that. I don’t have time for anything but keeping it quiet.”

Now it was Jihoon’s turn to laugh, the sound soft and deep as he sat back in his chair. “Of course, it’s so difficult to keep things quiet when your officers don’t even know. Remind me, how much are you paying Park Kyung to bite the hand that jerks him off?”

“Fuck off,” Taeil finally swallowed a mouthful of his beer, “You know as well as I do that Kyung can take it, and, by the end, he will have done what he’s wanted to do for years now anyway.”

“All I’m saying is that I wouldn’t be surprised when killing Jiho doesn’t get you what you thought it would.”


End file.
